5/1/05

“Locusts”

Brad Walker

To my loving cousin Casey, whose crippling fear inspired this story

Red eyes glaring menacingly upward; black, unpleasant-looking exterior: this was what Nicole Heiburg had feared for the past seven years.

“AHH! The locusts are here!” She screamed, stepping out of her house one day in late May. “Mommy! Help!” Moments later, a bronze-skinned, busty woman, cloaked in a black, satin robe and curlers in her bleach-blonde hair came charging out the front door, armed with a sandal.

“… Where is it?” She asked gravely.

“Right there!” Nicole exclaimed, pointing down at the stoop. Before Nicole could think to breathe again, her mother had delivered a punishing blow to the vile creature, ending its short life.

“… Thank you, Mommy.” Nicole said meekly.

“Nicky, you’re nearly eighteen years old; you’ve gotta get over this phobia of locusts you have…” Mrs. Heiburg said. “… And for Christ’s sake, quit calling me ‘Mommy’! Call me ‘Mom’… or Debra.”

“… Okay.”

It was the year of the locust in the town where Nicole lived. Every seven years the community was swarmed by a plague of locusts. The last time it happened, Nicole was ten: that’s when she developed her irrational fear of them, which she had been very vocal about ever since, but had never exactly explained what particular instance turned her against them so greatly.

“I saw one of them today.” She told her cousin, Rex, as he was driving her to work.

“Jesus Christ…” He mumbled.

“… It was terrible.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“You should have seen the look it gave me… It had it out for me, I just know it!”

Rex began chewing on his left thumbnail, out of boredom of the subject.

“And I had a dream last night! I think it might have been a premonition!” She pressed on, too engrossed in her own terror to recognize her cousin’s signs of apathy. “I dreamed that I woke up in my bedroom, and I turned on the light and the locusts had swarmed in my room! And they crawled all over me and carried me off to their queen who said she wanted to eat my head, and I was all like ‘NOO!’ and she was all like ‘YES!’ and I was all like ‘NOO!’ and she was like ‘Well fuck you bitch, ‘cause I’m eatin’ your head anyway!’… and then I woke up because Mom was screaming at me for burning a batch of brownies that were sitting on the back burner of the stove when I made ramen noodles last night.”

Rex spat his chewed-off thumbnail onto the dashboard in front of him. “I had a dream last night.” He said. “I was sitting in the cafeteria of a mental institution eating a pickle skewered on a dagger… and I looked down and the table was made entirely of ham.” He explained. “… Strangest thing about it was that it didn’t seam like such a big deal that the table I was sitting at was made of raw pork… I mean, it was unfortunate… but not really weird… It was like ‘Damnit! I should have gotten here earlier so I wouldn’t have to sit at one of the fuckin’ ham tables!’.”

Nicole stared at him for a moment, not saying anything.

“That’s pretty fucked up right there, Rex.” She said, finally.

“I know.”

“… Did you go to bed high?”

“No…” He replied. “… A little.”